The discharge current in our experiments reached 50 kA, the duration of discharge was about 2 X 10’5 s, and the average electric power going to the plasmaforming dielectric surface was not less than 2 x 107 W/cm2. The magnetic pressure at maximum current was 1 MPa and the magnetic pressure integral 4 x 10'4Ns. The measured (anomalous) average plasma pressure on the wall and the force impulse were 5 MPa and 5 x 10’3N s respectively. The New Plasma Launcher The discovery of this anomalous plasma pressure makes it possible to propose an accelerator as shown in Fig. 4. According to classical electrodynamics, such an accelerator should not function. But, as we have shown, [7] it does. At high energy inputs to the erosion plasma (107-108 W/cm2 of plasma-forming surface), the plasma will become turbulent and, on the edge of the plasma, a dense pre-wall vapor with a frequency of several megacycles, the triple D-layers will form, the electric field therein exceeding 108V/cm and the electric potentials (the heights of the potential humps) UD = 100-1000 V. The D layers will accelerate the plasma from the wall (in the Ampere force direction) and, by means of shock waves in the vapor, will transmit the impulse to the wall (against the Ampere force direction). Because the D layer fields are much greater than the Lorenz fields in the plasma flow, the latter will be scarcely affected by the Ampere force. In toto, the plasma will influence a projectile by the anomalous pressure pan much more than the magnetic pressure B2/2po will. If S is the surface area of the rear dielectric wall of a projectile, the accelerating force will be F = Spu„, being much more than the force FA = | JxB |, where J is the total current through the plasma. Thus the new accelerator acts as a jet but with an external power supply, using the rear dielectric wall material as solid fuel. The discharge circuit inductance in such an accelerator decreases as the projectile travels along the rails. That is why the electric current path adheres to the rear wall of a projectile (as in impulse erosion plasma accelerators). [4-6] Another characteristic of this accelerator is the higher supply voltage than in an Ampere accelerator, which permits more input power to the accelerator for a given current or a lower current for the same power.
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